1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for utilizing barcodes as part of the print manufacturing process and more particularly to a system and method that are able to manage and/or monitor a printing manufacturing process.
2. Description of Related Art
Over the past several years, the printing manufacturing industry has undergone numerous improvements resulting in improved printed products and services for consumers. Manufacturing printed items is somewhat unique within the realm of manufacturing and printing in that each printed job is typically customized or in other words each printed job has its own specific characteristics that are unique to that job. Additionally, throughout the process to produce the final printed goods most of the components used in the final manufacturing will be made specifically to meet the customer and job requirements. To create a printed product, typically a printing plate and a press color proof will be created during a pre-press phase and the plate and/or proof will then be sent to a location that has a printing press or other printing device to be used.
In the printing industry, the equipment used to manufacture and produce the printed products are generally standard devices made by a wide array of competitive vendors. As computers and databases have become more commonplace in the process, interprocess communication systems have been implemented to allow the sharing of data between the various portions of the process. This communication provides easy methods to track the material usage, production performance, costs, and to ensure and further enable systems of quality control.
Within the print industry much work has been done to attempt to standardize manufacturing communication between the disparate hardware used in the various portions of the overall printing process. Currently, most of this work is maintained by the CIP4 organization. Exemplar formats of communication formats include PPF (Print Production Format), JMF (Job Messaging format), and JDF (Job Description Format). Generally, these formats either act as part of serial point to point systems where data is only shared between a few points or require complex Management Information Systems (MIS) to act as a central repository for the manufacturing information. Implementation of these formats require dramatic modifications of the original equipment to enable exchange of these formats. In almost all situations each MIS and all direct cross system communication require specific development to enable successful communications. Prior art systems are limited however in that they are unable to track a print job throughout the manufacturing process and are limited in what information about the print job can accompany the print job or plate through the process.
Accordingly, a need exists for an improved system and method, particularly a system and method that are able to manage and monitor a printing manufacturing process in a way that enables communication between disparate systems that are a part of the manufacturing process or users who are overseeing the process. The embodiments of the present invention satisfy the foregoing, as well as other needs.